Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Why am I awake at 4am?...

I have no idea what is going on with me…I mean travelling from Manchester will not give anyone fucking jetlag will it?Yet I cannot sleep, and really I should as I have an early meeting in the morning about the play going on tour.

Yet here I sit and stare at the PC wondering what to write.I like daybreak and so I may sit and wait for it.

When Ashley was a tiny baby she used to wake up at 6am for her first feed, it was spring time and there was something infinitely magical about that time in the morning.

It was just me, her and the cat all sitting at my kitchen table at the old window in the East end watching the sky change over the roof tops and tenements.The Glasgow Green across from my flat was in full bloom.

The daffodils were all open and greedy for light, like a bunch of yellow topped football hooligans vying for the best spot to see a goal.

I always think of my mum when I see daffodils, because she died in April and four years later Ashley was born in April. Ashley made me forget April was sad and made me look forward to it again.

I loved those moments, even when they were happening I knew I would remember them when I needed to. We lived above the bar we owned and I returned to work two days after her birth and my husband and I just shared the chores, one parent took the baby and one took the pub, we swapped a baby across the counter for a pint glass and just got on with the job in hand.

Because of this I never seemed to get her on my own, there was always a customer or a brother in law or a husband or….something to be there between us in our busy life. I cherished those early morning sunny times, when she lay cradled in my arm and sucked on a bottle and would occasionally smile, doing so the milk would run from her fat cheeks and down her bib, she would even giggle when she tiny, you could feel her wee body gurgle in your arms as she spouted warm baby milk…I thought my heart would burst watching this wee child laugh as she watched me intently, like she knew something funny was going on but kept the joke to herself.

Thinking about that I still can’t fully understand how people can love more than one child the way I love her…how do they do that? I am sure they do it well, because I am the youngest of four kids and I was much loved and knew it.

Maybe I am hormonal? Maybe I need another baby before my womb becomes as dangerous as a cluster bomb and transforms me into the old woman who smells of piss and carries a cat, dressed in a mohair jumper that travels in my duffel coat hood?

Maybe I need to sleep…I will go, but first I go look into my daughters room that resembles the squat in Trainspotting and look at her sleeping, she still puts her palms together and rests her cheeks on them and sleeps like a wee angel…well an angel who is very messy and likes the room to have that ‘Beirut’ look about it. How on earth does she find clothes amongst that heap of tangled shit on the floor?Maybe I can go in there as she sleeps and hang up everything on coat hangers…or maybe I should go sleep????